Race, Religion, and Science Fiction: Co-Created Learning, unEssays, and the Power of Film #70

Josh interviews Patrick D’Silva, PhD, about his graduate special-topics course “Race, Religion, and Science Fiction,” developed from an upper-level “Religion and Science Fiction” class and expanded to foreground race alongside gender, sexuality, and disability through units on Lord of the Rings, Star Wars/Star Trek, Indigenous Futurism, Afrofuturism/Africanfuturism, cyberpunk (including Neuromancer), monsters (Frankenstein), and Jediism as a fiction-based religious movement.

Patrick describes a student-autonomy model where students help shape the syllabus, choose evaluation methods, and can submit response papers as podcasts and final “unEssays” as creative projects (e.g., illustrated journals, roleplaying games, cookbooks, audio tracks, paintings), including course examples like a Wakanda zine and Parable of the Sower-inspired journaling.

He connects this pedagogy to flexibility and compassion shaped by his teaching, parenting a child with special needs, and the pandemic, and explains using film/TV because students are increasingly oriented to visual media, which also supports immersion, participation, and representation.

Patrick’s Substack/podcast project “Worlds Beyond Worlds” is now live, where he will publish interviews with students about their projects.

Website: https://worldbeyondworlds.substack.com/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2duGUU6qmoJXH97FjFzzpH?si=0c93503209054dab

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/worlds-beyond-worlds/id1883192717

02:29 Course Origins

06:39 Student Led Syllabus

08:22 Creative unEssays

17:37 Holistic Learning

26:24 Why Film And TV